KT will work with Starbucks to provide 10G Internet-based ’10 GiGA Wifi’ to Starbucks Korea. Customers who visit Starbucks stores with 10 GiGA WiFi will be able to experience 10 GiGA WiFi for the first time in the world.

KT’s ’10 GiGA WiFi’ stores are three of the largest in Korea, including ‘The Jongro Store’ opened in December, the ‘Starfield Coex Mall R Store’, and the ‘Gangnam Kyobo Tower R store’. KT plans to expand its 10 GiGA WiFi service center based on Starbucks specialized stores (Reserve).

KT is the number one provider of wired Internet and WiFi services in Korea, and is accelerating commercialization of next-generation WiFi and 10G Internet services by the end of 2017.

The 10 GiGa WiFi services built on Starbucks are based on the next-generation WiFi technology ‘IEEE 802.11ax Standard’ and next-generation Internet technology ‘10G Internet’, which were first commercialized by KT in 2017.

10 GiGA WiFi is a 10G Internet-based service that implements 802.11ax, the standard of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Its maximum speed is about 4.8Gbps, which is about three times faster than the existing 802.11ac (with a maximum speed of 1.7Gbps).

In addition, through the use of OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access) and the MU-MIMO (Multo-User Multi Input Multi Output)* technologies, which are major technologies of the 802.11ax, problems related to quality deterioration have been drastically improved.

As a result, customers are expected to experience a 2 to 4 times improvement in congestion time even with a large number of concurrent users.

KT has been using the next generation Wi-Fi (802.11ax standard) to experience it at the KT Square in Gwanghwamun and at the Pyeongchang Olympics Games in early December of last year. By September, the company plans to expand its operations to include Starbucks Reserve stores nationwide.

Meanwhile, KT plans to deply 10 GiGA WiFi and apply more secure WiFi access security technology starting in August. Starting in August, all customers visiting Starbucks stores will be able to use WiFi services more safely through enhanced Service Set Identifier (SSID) connection.

“KT will collaborate with Starbucks to present KT’s superior 10G Internet infrastructure and next generation WiFi technology to its customers,” said Park Hyun-jin, KT’s Director of Wired/Wireless marketing.